Love to Hate You (3 page)

But so far, at least, it was still a draw.

*

“So do you think you'll manage not to kill each other if you have to attend a couple of meetings together?” asks Colin, his voice bringing me back to reality.

“It's been five years – we can at least try to be civil,” I reply, surprised at myself.

Colin is pleasantly taken aback: diplomacy has never been one of my strong suits. He starts to smile. At least someone's still able to.

“You've made me very happy, Jenny. Seriously, you've no idea—”

I do, though, because I know what it means for him to be able to trust people. I admit that over the past five years there hasn't been much common sense in these offices, so maybe for once I can try to do something for him, because he's always stuck up for me. In fact, it was Colin who talked them into keeping me on after that famous punch.

After all, it was
me
who punched
him
, so the way everybody else saw it was that technically I was in the wrong. Colin knew that if I'd reacted that way, however, it was because someone else had crossed the line.

“Would you rather that I tell Ian?” he asks.

I'm thirty-three years old, though: I don't need a nanny. It would be nice, but, alas, each of us must shoulder our own burdens.

“No, thanks. I'll do it,” I say, sounding resigned. “It's down to me to talk to Ian.”

Colin puts an arm around my shoulders. “Good luck.”

Something tells me I'm really going to need it.

*

Telling Ian myself hadn't seemed like such a terrible idea when I'd proposed it to Colin, but once back in my office the awful impossibility of it starts to sink in, and I end up spending all day glued to my chair.

I'm a coward, I know… and that's not like me. And that thought is all it takes to rouse me from my torpor and spur me into action.

The office is almost completely empty now, and outside its pitch black. Dinner time is long past, and tomorrow is Saturday, thank God, so those who can leave early have left, gone for a weekend away or out on a date.

George, my PA, peeks round my office door. “You still here?” he asks, as though there's a chance I might not be.

“What do you think?”

He gives me a look, and I see compassion in his eyes.

“Good luck,” he says, and I know what he's referring to. The whole office probably knows what's going on.

“Thanks, George. Have a nice weekend. Have fun,” I reply.

Part of me would like Ian to have already left so I could spend the next two days in relative peace and wait until Monday before confronting him, but today destiny seems to have it in for me.

Sighing in dismay, I climb out of my chair and set off, ready to flush my two days of serenity down the toilet. The light from Ian's office is bright and impossible not to notice, even from right down the corridor.

I've never been one to hold back in the face of a challenge, but today, for the first time, I almost wish I knew how.

As I walk stealthily along the corridor, I notice that Tamara, Ian's PA, has very wisely decamped: not even her crush on her boss is powerful enough to keep her in the office until nine o'clock on a Friday night.

No hesitation or second thoughts as I knock firmly on his door and walk straight in without waiting for an answer. Better to catch him off guard – every little psychological advantage helps, and indeed I must have surprised him, because he gives me a look of genuine astonishment. But it only lasts a second, because it almost immediately turns wary and dangerous, and the eyes that were clear before become veiled and hazy.

It's funny, but I'd never realised the effect my physical presence has on him. One second I was looking at a perfectly relaxed man, and now in his place there's an enemy, ready to attack.

Ian is sitting comfortably in his black leather chair, his guarded face lit by his PC screen. My eyes immediately fall on his unbuttoned collar and loosened tie and the huge sheaf of papers he is holding in one hand, which he dumps on the table as soon as he notices my presence.

“Why knock if you're not going to wait for me to answer, I wonder?” he asks, thinking aloud.

“Do I really have to tell you?” I reply, sitting down in the chair across from him.

The corner of his lips curls up in a hint of a smile. “Of course not – you know very well why: you knocked out of respect for the formalities, but didn't wait for my answer so that way you'd have the advantage of surprise. Isn't that right?”

I force a smile. Yes, it is. Of course.

I have to be honest: Ian's brain has always been a problem. I can usually outwit most people, but in his case his perfidious intelligence almost matches my own. Which is very annoying.

Ian relaxes his shoulders and sinks into the chair.

“To what do I owe the honour?” he asks, peering at me with those blue eyes.

Now that I'm here, I don't really know where to start. In my mind I'd built up a sort of outline of what I was going to say, but now it's as if my mind is blank.

“You're not here to thank me, presumably?” he asks sarcastically, the little snake.

“Thank you?” I ask in shock. “For what?” My voice has suddenly got very loud. Ian chuckles. “This morning, for having saved your arse with Beverly—” he points out.

I interrupt him instantly. “I saved
myself
with Beverly, actually.”

“Of course, but only because my being there softened him up for you. So you could
save yourself
,” he emphasises.

Part of me knows that he's right, but he's caused me so much grief that it would take a thousand more good deeds like todays to even the score between us.

“Let's get one thing straight – I would have managed perfectly well myself even without your annoying presence, Ian.”

He glances at me doubtfully. “That remains to be seen, dear lady.” The way he says it sends a shiver down my spine.

For a moment we just stare at each other, neither wanting to be the first to look away but eventually Ian breaks the silence. “Well, I'd love to stay here all evening but, alas, in ten minutes I have to be out of the office as I have a date, so I'd ask you to get to the point,” he says in a voice which is suddenly cold. He's finished with the pleasantries.

“The point is Beverly,” I say, clearly. “He wants us to work together on his portfolio.”

“Of course he does,” says Ian as if it was the most normal thing in the world, “he's heard that we are the two brightest brains in the whole department and he wants both our contributions. I can understand that. You can develop your project and once you've finished pass it over to me and I'll see if I can suggest any improvements,” he says calmly.

And it's strange, because Ian is anything but a predictable man. In the worst sense of the term, of course. “This bimbo you're taking out to dinner tonight has obviously got you all hot and bothered, but do try to stay focused for a few minutes,” I snap back.

My sentence obviously stings him, because he immediately leans out of his chair, grabs my wrist and comes dangerously close to my face.

“Bimbo?” he echoes angrily. In his eyes I can see literal flashes of blue.

And it makes me smile. “They usually are. Or have your tastes changed recently?” I ask with an expression of perfect innocence.

Ian leans close to my face and, struggling visibly to control himself, says, “God how I wish I could shut that big mouth of yours once and for all. It would be the greatest satisfaction of my life.”

In his eyes I can see an anger that's close to uncontrollable. I've really made him lose his temper. Good.

With a determined yank I manage to remove my arm from his grasp and put a safe distance between us. I've already broken his nose once, I wouldn't want to have to do it again.

“Point one, Beverly wants us to work together, and the two of us, being the perfect professionals and adults we are, are going to do it,” I explain. “Second, there isn't going to be any team, there will just be the two of us on this job – we're already irrational enough without involving other people in this feud of ours.”

His expression is a mixture of irritation and understanding. I see he's starting to guess where I'm going with this. “Point three, when we have to pull each other's hair, figuratively of course, we will do it
outside
this office. As far as everyone else is concerned, the two of us will get on like a house on fire for the duration of the assignment. Our inevitable rows will take
not
take place here,” I conclude.

“You don't want witnesses, you mean,” replies Ian, without a trace of surprise.

“Of course not, and neither do you. Last time, the constant arguing nearly cost us both our careers, and I don't want anything like that this time.”

“Especially because it cost me my nose—” he points out with irritation.

“And I wouldn't want to have to ruin your plastic surgeon's sterling work,” I answer sarcastically.

I know that Ian didn't have any work done on his nose after its appointment with my fist, but insinuating that he did always gives me some satisfaction, because it's an issue he's particularly sensitive about. His obsession with his appearance is well known to all, as is his terror of hospitals and operations.

“The sterling work I would have
liked
him to do, you mean,” he points out angrily.

“God, honestly – you're more obsessed with the shape of your nose than a woman! I've got an ugly nose but I manage to have a perfectly normal life,” I say, feeling wise.

“You don't have an ugly nose,” he says with conviction, “you have a normal nose which is perfectly suited to your face.”

His words leave me in shock for a moment: Ian saying nice things about my nose? Where on earth is this conversation going?

“Of course, if we were talking about your hair, I'd have something to say,” he adds hastily.

Ah, there we go – I'm more comfortable with criticism. For the record, I have very normal hair, a very normal brown colour and of an extremely average length. There's not really much to criticize.

“So is it a deal?” I ask, ignoring his comment as I stand up and proffer my hand instead. Professionalism above all.

“Do I have a choice?” he asks, a resigned look on his face.

“Of course not,” I reply affably.

Ian sighs. “Alright, it's a deal,” he says. He looks doubtfully at my hand, and I'm almost starting to think he won't shake it when he suddenly makes his mind up and grabs it. A firm grip, which leaves no room for indecision.

I look up and meet his gaze. And that's a mistake, because those infamous blue eyes of his trap me immediately, and it's a struggle to pull myself away. I can see why he has the whole of London at his feet. Seriously, I can be objective and recognize when a man is objectively, annoyingly good-looking. They tell me that he's often in the tabloids: a nobleman, future duke, first in line to an empire of immense riches and with a physical presence that doesn't go unnoticed. He's always being photographed with models or women who work in PR – playing at having a job while they try to snare themselves a man. Of course, the whole lot of them together wouldn't have the IQ of a person of average intelligence, but that doesn't matter. All Ian wants is to be idolised, nothing more.

I pull my hand out of his grip as though I'd burned it and look away. Better get back to reality. “Have a good night and a good weekend, then,” I say magnanimously, proud of having risen above the situation.

He raises his usual sarcastic eyebrow, and my plan to bury the hatchet melts like snow in the sun. “Come on, get a move on,” I add as I walk towards the door, “you know bimbos don't like being kept hanging around. Never make them wait.”

And to top it off, I give him a wink just before I disappear into the darkness of the corridor.

I go back to my office and, for the first time since I opened my eyes this morning, I want to smile. Thanks Ian – thanks a lot.

I slam my little car up the gears as it noisily hurtles its way through the fields outside London. I'm in the countryside, approaching my parents' farm, where everything is 100 per cent organic, and even more politically correct.

My parents are bizarre creatures – or at least, that's how they look to someone as square as me. They're English but they're anti-royalists, they're vegetarians – vegans, to be precise – and they are anti-religion, or at least closer to Buddhism than to any other religion, they're a common law couple who never got married and they'll support pretty much any non-governmental organisation going. They have three children: Michael, my big brother, who works as a doctor for Amnesty International and various other organisations that help refugees around the world, and my sister Stacey who works as a solicitor for people too poor to able to afford one. And me.

Given all this, it's easy to understand why I feel uncomfortable around them. I'm a tax consultant, for God's sake! As far as they're concerned, my job is to help rich people get richer, which makes me a walking, talking symbol of the ills of society – a sort of she-demon with a laptop, if you will.

But I'm also their youngest daughter, so they do their best to put up with me – if I was the eldest they'd probably have cut me off a long time ago. When Charles was in my life, they looked upon me with a slightly more benevolent eye, but without him I'll surely be back to being the least loved member of the family.

*

As soon as I park, the usual flock of geese rushes over to try and bite my hand in greeting.

Free-range geese are cheerful creatures, according to my mother. I'm of a somewhat different opinion, but I've never had the guts to confess it.

I don't even get
why
my parents keep geese, to tell you the truth, since they don't eat them. Geese are nasty creatures, as everybody knows, and the ones my parents produce are even more belligerent and hateful than usual.